We are primed to spend a whole lot of your ratepayer money because forty five years ago electric substations were built with different criteria in mind. Read: FERC and NERC didn't yet exist, and all their new reliability standards are going to cost you a fortune, dear reader. You just don't know it yet.
Indeed, you'll never even know why your rates will rise faster than inflation over the next twenty years, but hey! you'll have reliable power, and you'll have your smarte grid. You have no idea how much non-productive effort my utility is currently undergoing this week for our NERC audit, non-productive...as it is as much a display of correct paperwork as it is actually having built electrical infrastructure to keep the power reliable.
The problem I have is that my industry has developed an irrational fear of fines for non-compliance while we'll have spent thrice that to avoid them. I would accept this if it really led to more reliable power, but I don't believe it. Always the skeptic I am.
You'll never even know how much it'll cost. Today, I couldn't log into my SCADA system to print out a station diagram -- a routine endeavor at any other time, but for these CIP standards and our readiness audit I fuckered away a half hour trying to 1) log in, 2) figure out what part of this wasn't working, 3) engaging the time of a SCADA specialist, 4) engaging the time of a co-worker to print the diagram out and 5) wasting a half hour. All this goes totally unreported, not counted in any audit-cost metric, simply lost to time and space. And it didn't get fixed. Tomorrow I'll have to piss away more time, too, to see this problem through.
And two years from now, when I have a fault at a substation deemed a critical asset, I won't be able to access my relay to find out what happened because we yanked out the cable to the front IP port connection due to these standards. Send out a relay technician on double time in a big diesel truck to pull the event record manually, while my engineering time goes idle waiting for him when I just could have retrieved it remotely in under four minutes. All this goes totally unreported, not counted in any audit-cost metric, simply lost to time and space.
And you know what? Critical assets are such a "guarded secret" that I'm not even allowed to know what assets are included! What a crock of shit! The list is confidential even to those like me who work designing them!
You have no idea how much time it took for our one utility to process just this critical asset list. Indeed, it's probably confidential. If we spent 100 man hours or 180,000 man hours, all this cost is that much less to be allocated to transformer iron, to overhead wires, to things that really make a difference in providing reliable power.
In my little view, and it is indeed little, smart grid and NERC are two major factors into why you're going to see 3-5% rate inflation every year for decades, while electric providers expand the role the they have in providing that service. That again -- smart grid is about expanding the role the electric provider has in providing that service. And it will be expensive...technology always is. This is why I'm so terse about this, why I don't think the means will justify the ends.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
Squat In Your Own Unit
In the face of the lowest mortgage rates in our nation's history comes the announcement that we've dropped 27% in existing home sales.
Admittedly, I'm just a little bit pissed that I've spent the past fourteen years paying on a mortgage whose time value of money ranged between 7.75% and 5.625%, while mortgage rates today are less than 4% (for a 15-year note). I would have been better off not paying down that principal and instead spent my money on hookers and blow. Today a blowjob on Stockton Blvd. is probably more expensive than one in 2004 while mortgage rates are lower. Probably. I'm just sayin'.
We're not selling as many units while borrowing rates are the cheapest any American has seen in our history?
On the radio today a mortgage lending advertisement was blunt: all mortgages end up backed by Freddie or Fannie so go with the cheapest mortgage service provider...us. Freddie and Fannie are themselves marketing ways for you to buy with no money down without once divulging how Mrs. taxpayer holds all the risk. Assume for a second that home prices fall another 15% and a few hundred thousand of us decide to default...who's taking it on the chin?
Didn't you, back in 2005, wake up every day thinking how you were worth $47 more than the day before simply because youowed owned a home? Didn't that feel wonderful? Don't you remember not really giving a shit that the broker you employed to help sell your previous housal unit drove her white Mercedes from unit to unit, knowing that you were getting your own slice of that housal unit pie? Don't you remember your financial stocks rising 32% per annum ad infinitum due to all their creative financial instruments?"
I've said it before on my monologues: housal units are our economy -- we've got nothing left other that the building, financing, and the accessorizing of suburban sprawl. Sprawl is a necessary component of our economic existence. Without growing it, our economy collapses, which is why, in my little opinion, we are doing every damn fool thing we can to artificially inflate prices. Did you, dear reader who purchased your unit pre-2007, get an $18,000 tax credit for doing so? Did you, dear reader, get your mortgage backed by Freddie or Fannie as a certainty by your MSP? Did you, dear reader who purchased your unit pre-2002, have access to four percent interest?
Tell me: How is it that sales volume can drop 27% year over year while housal unit prices remain virtually unchanged? Wouldn't you expect that in any decent economy prices would drop to accommodate the lack of demand?
I gotta say that there must be several million families willing to purchase an inflated housal unit today because they know that rates are dirt cheap, but they don't know/care that they've paid a premium because they know that rates are dirt cheap. If a $14,000 car at 7% is offered at $19,000 at 4.5%, Americans will jump on that in a minute, thinking somehow that they've beaten the banker.
4.5%? Wa-hey!
Because we've artifically created early housal unit sales due to stimulati, my guess is that we will see prices falling going forward now that we've created a depressed forward demand. What, pray tell, makes you believe that prices will rise when there are 3,977,844 unoccupied units with no other govermental stimulatory programs out there?
Really though, when an existing unit changes hands there isn't a whole lot of economic growth occurring. Sure, there's a commission generated for the florist-turned-realtor but overall there isn't nearly the economic stimulati that a new unit generates. No...used home sales are a good indicator of where prices are headed as housal units are the principal store of wealth for most Americans.
A co-worker divulged that he'll continue paying on his $302,000 mortgage while his unit is worth $160,000 because his calculated savings by foreclosing and renting would only be $250 a month...but his unit is his home. I've been trying to tell him how much he'd be able to save by sqatting in his own unit for the next 12-18 months while his mortgage holders wrestle with figuring out who owns what and figuring out which investor holds which exotic security the mortgage was bundled into and that it'll take a long, long time to finally evict him. Living mortgage-free for twelve to eighteen months? If he saved all that he'd have a hell of an egg ready for his next housal unit, seven years hence, without being underwater. But he won't do it.
Fair enough. It's like making a car payment on a car with four flat tires. Same with anyone else, in my little opinion, who buys a housal unit today when prices tomorrow are most certainly going to drop.
Admittedly, I'm just a little bit pissed that I've spent the past fourteen years paying on a mortgage whose time value of money ranged between 7.75% and 5.625%, while mortgage rates today are less than 4% (for a 15-year note). I would have been better off not paying down that principal and instead spent my money on hookers and blow. Today a blowjob on Stockton Blvd. is probably more expensive than one in 2004 while mortgage rates are lower. Probably. I'm just sayin'.
We're not selling as many units while borrowing rates are the cheapest any American has seen in our history?
On the radio today a mortgage lending advertisement was blunt: all mortgages end up backed by Freddie or Fannie so go with the cheapest mortgage service provider...us. Freddie and Fannie are themselves marketing ways for you to buy with no money down without once divulging how Mrs. taxpayer holds all the risk. Assume for a second that home prices fall another 15% and a few hundred thousand of us decide to default...who's taking it on the chin?
Didn't you, back in 2005, wake up every day thinking how you were worth $47 more than the day before simply because you
I've said it before on my monologues: housal units are our economy -- we've got nothing left other that the building, financing, and the accessorizing of suburban sprawl. Sprawl is a necessary component of our economic existence. Without growing it, our economy collapses, which is why, in my little opinion, we are doing every damn fool thing we can to artificially inflate prices. Did you, dear reader who purchased your unit pre-2007, get an $18,000 tax credit for doing so? Did you, dear reader, get your mortgage backed by Freddie or Fannie as a certainty by your MSP? Did you, dear reader who purchased your unit pre-2002, have access to four percent interest?
Tell me: How is it that sales volume can drop 27% year over year while housal unit prices remain virtually unchanged? Wouldn't you expect that in any decent economy prices would drop to accommodate the lack of demand?
I gotta say that there must be several million families willing to purchase an inflated housal unit today because they know that rates are dirt cheap, but they don't know/care that they've paid a premium because they know that rates are dirt cheap. If a $14,000 car at 7% is offered at $19,000 at 4.5%, Americans will jump on that in a minute, thinking somehow that they've beaten the banker.
4.5%? Wa-hey!
Because we've artifically created early housal unit sales due to stimulati, my guess is that we will see prices falling going forward now that we've created a depressed forward demand. What, pray tell, makes you believe that prices will rise when there are 3,977,844 unoccupied units with no other govermental stimulatory programs out there?
Really though, when an existing unit changes hands there isn't a whole lot of economic growth occurring. Sure, there's a commission generated for the florist-turned-realtor but overall there isn't nearly the economic stimulati that a new unit generates. No...used home sales are a good indicator of where prices are headed as housal units are the principal store of wealth for most Americans.
A co-worker divulged that he'll continue paying on his $302,000 mortgage while his unit is worth $160,000 because his calculated savings by foreclosing and renting would only be $250 a month...but his unit is his home. I've been trying to tell him how much he'd be able to save by sqatting in his own unit for the next 12-18 months while his mortgage holders wrestle with figuring out who owns what and figuring out which investor holds which exotic security the mortgage was bundled into and that it'll take a long, long time to finally evict him. Living mortgage-free for twelve to eighteen months? If he saved all that he'd have a hell of an egg ready for his next housal unit, seven years hence, without being underwater. But he won't do it.
Fair enough. It's like making a car payment on a car with four flat tires. Same with anyone else, in my little opinion, who buys a housal unit today when prices tomorrow are most certainly going to drop.
Service Providing
I read today, forgot where, how there are as many Americans employed in manufacturing as there were in 1940...with a population roughly half of what it is today.
I was offing waste into the garbage can today and every box, every box, was labeled Made In China. All the stuff my consumeristic family purchases was all sourced overseas.
That said, I can be well assured that my 14-year old son will never, ever find himself in a manufacturing job. Ever.
Particularly him being a Californian. California is the place to consume shit, not to manufacture shit. Just ask all those formerly employed at the NUMMI plant in Fremont, recently shuttered. We cannot compete with cheaper Asians. We cannot. Not when we demand time-and-a-half, vacation, sick-leave, defined pensions, union rules, OSHA oversight and environmental restrictions, while expecting that our eggs, our vacuum cleaners and our iPods be cheaper today than yesterday.
Fair enough. Global wage arbitrage led to these NUMMI job losses, along with a half million other manufacturing jobs. We had just better re-invent ourselves as service providers:
Sell insurance on stuff.
Sell insurance on others.
Sell insurance on yourself.
Cut each other's hair.
Sell movie tickets to movie attendants on their days off.
Sell hot dogs to hot dog vendors on their days off.
Sell financial products to service commercial real-estate.
Mow the lawns of those unwilling to venture out-of-doors.
Use that commercial real-estate to sell consumer shit (strip retail).
Create valued-additions such as converting corn into Chicken McNuggets, petroleum into infusion tubing.
Amuse others during their leisure time, while allowing them to amuse you during your leisure.
Perform a theatrical performance of the mime to other mime artists.
Wash car windows of Home Depot patrons in the parking lot.
Market your app to rip Youtube videos to iTouches.
Sell golf vacations.
Manage four-star resorts in balmy locales.
Sell authorized NASCAR jackets to Alabamans...jackets made by Vietnamese workers, of course.
Clean the houses of maids while they clean your house.
Disseminate economic information to the public. Tell them how great our economy is doing.
Kill household pests for those unwilling to venture out-of-doors.
This is our future. Service providing. OK. Let's make the best of it...
I was offing waste into the garbage can today and every box, every box, was labeled Made In China. All the stuff my consumeristic family purchases was all sourced overseas.
That said, I can be well assured that my 14-year old son will never, ever find himself in a manufacturing job. Ever.
Particularly him being a Californian. California is the place to consume shit, not to manufacture shit. Just ask all those formerly employed at the NUMMI plant in Fremont, recently shuttered. We cannot compete with cheaper Asians. We cannot. Not when we demand time-and-a-half, vacation, sick-leave, defined pensions, union rules, OSHA oversight and environmental restrictions, while expecting that our eggs, our vacuum cleaners and our iPods be cheaper today than yesterday.
Fair enough. Global wage arbitrage led to these NUMMI job losses, along with a half million other manufacturing jobs. We had just better re-invent ourselves as service providers:
Sell insurance on stuff.
Sell insurance on others.
Sell insurance on yourself.
Cut each other's hair.
Sell movie tickets to movie attendants on their days off.
Sell hot dogs to hot dog vendors on their days off.
Sell financial products to service commercial real-estate.
Mow the lawns of those unwilling to venture out-of-doors.
Use that commercial real-estate to sell consumer shit (strip retail).
Create valued-additions such as converting corn into Chicken McNuggets, petroleum into infusion tubing.
Amuse others during their leisure time, while allowing them to amuse you during your leisure.
Perform a theatrical performance of the mime to other mime artists.
Wash car windows of Home Depot patrons in the parking lot.
Market your app to rip Youtube videos to iTouches.
Sell golf vacations.
Manage four-star resorts in balmy locales.
Sell authorized NASCAR jackets to Alabamans...jackets made by Vietnamese workers, of course.
Clean the houses of maids while they clean your house.
Disseminate economic information to the public. Tell them how great our economy is doing.
Kill household pests for those unwilling to venture out-of-doors.
This is our future. Service providing. OK. Let's make the best of it...
Too Much Month At The End Of The Money
I lunched today with some electrical engineering designers. I review their designs for consistency with transmission protection practices, and for the most part have only ever engaged them professionally. Today, I got to know them on a personal level.
And wouldn't you know it, there isn't one who's anywhere near paying off their mortgage...not even close. I really don't mean to boast about my own personal finances, but I do...I admit it. I do, only because I spent the better part of the last fifteen years having too much month at the end of the money from overpaying my mortgage.
I can't tell you how many times I've overdrafted my bank account because I willingly overpaid the mortgage first; how many times the wife bitched at me for not having sufficient funds; how many times I've gone without American-style splurges in wanton consumption.
But...now only eight [seven?] months from the end, I will willingly boast about this because I must be the only one in my generation who's done this. When I discuss matters with my financial advisor at Edward Jones -- he's there to remind me how he has no other client my age who has $450k outside their housal unit saved for retirement. The only one? I've not ever really focused on putting money away but I have always put money away...so what are the rest in my generation doing, huh? Driving Acuras? Buying window coverings? Getting stoned? Holidaying in Hawa'ii? There's a time and place for that but jeez -- save first.
Today I walked over to my [foreclosed] neighbor's house to dump last weekend's party trash into their trash cans (a hidden benefit of forclosures -- use of these now "free" garbage facilities). On their door was a notice of default -- balance at $191,545 on a deed of trust dated 2/23/2003. For seven years a couple lived here, making payments, now all of which have evaporated into thin air. They had the wherewithal to purchase another home in Sonoma before the crash so they simply elected to drive away from this one. Take the credit hit -- they got a new housal unit and immediately eliminated $60k in underwater debt -- strategic.
But they, along with all my co-workers, all are multi-decades away from amorting their debts. Is this just the way it is?
And wouldn't you know it, there isn't one who's anywhere near paying off their mortgage...not even close. I really don't mean to boast about my own personal finances, but I do...I admit it. I do, only because I spent the better part of the last fifteen years having too much month at the end of the money from overpaying my mortgage.
I can't tell you how many times I've overdrafted my bank account because I willingly overpaid the mortgage first; how many times the wife bitched at me for not having sufficient funds; how many times I've gone without American-style splurges in wanton consumption.
But...now only eight [seven?] months from the end, I will willingly boast about this because I must be the only one in my generation who's done this. When I discuss matters with my financial advisor at Edward Jones -- he's there to remind me how he has no other client my age who has $450k outside their housal unit saved for retirement. The only one? I've not ever really focused on putting money away but I have always put money away...so what are the rest in my generation doing, huh? Driving Acuras? Buying window coverings? Getting stoned? Holidaying in Hawa'ii? There's a time and place for that but jeez -- save first.
Today I walked over to my [foreclosed] neighbor's house to dump last weekend's party trash into their trash cans (a hidden benefit of forclosures -- use of these now "free" garbage facilities). On their door was a notice of default -- balance at $191,545 on a deed of trust dated 2/23/2003. For seven years a couple lived here, making payments, now all of which have evaporated into thin air. They had the wherewithal to purchase another home in Sonoma before the crash so they simply elected to drive away from this one. Take the credit hit -- they got a new housal unit and immediately eliminated $60k in underwater debt -- strategic.
But they, along with all my co-workers, all are multi-decades away from amorting their debts. Is this just the way it is?
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Sprawl, American Style
I would find it hard to consider this living, but apparently most of you don't:
Beijing is in the throes of a 100-km traffic jam, nine-days long so far...this is what Western-style car dependency looks like in non-Western countries. We spent the better part of nine decades building our infrastructures to support extreme car worship while China/South Korea/etc/etc/etc/etc/etc/etc have all only had one. Maybe two at the outside. This is what results.
"Bargaining with price-gouging food vendors." Hmmm. What, do you suppose, would be an appropriate price for drink and food while traveling 1.2 km per day, huh?
Of course, a goodly number of these Chinese will just say fuck-it, and move to the outer Beijingian suburbs, escaping all that awful traffic, finding good jobs out there instead of inside the city limits, while decrying everyone else who follows after them looking for the same thing. Sprawl is coming to China, American style.
Most of you don't consider this to be abnormal, just a part of living you say. Doesn't mean you like it, but then, no one likes to make their mortgage payment either, but you gotta live somewhere. Therefore, you gotta drive.
Beijing is in the throes of a 100-km traffic jam, nine-days long so far...this is what Western-style car dependency looks like in non-Western countries. We spent the better part of nine decades building our infrastructures to support extreme car worship while China/South Korea/etc/etc/etc/etc/etc/etc have all only had one. Maybe two at the outside. This is what results.
"Bargaining with price-gouging food vendors." Hmmm. What, do you suppose, would be an appropriate price for drink and food while traveling 1.2 km per day, huh?
Of course, a goodly number of these Chinese will just say fuck-it, and move to the outer Beijingian suburbs, escaping all that awful traffic, finding good jobs out there instead of inside the city limits, while decrying everyone else who follows after them looking for the same thing. Sprawl is coming to China, American style.
Most of you don't consider this to be abnormal, just a part of living you say. Doesn't mean you like it, but then, no one likes to make their mortgage payment either, but you gotta live somewhere. Therefore, you gotta drive.
A Nation Of
I wonder if as a result of our last recession (it ended several months ago, remember?) three-wage earners per household will become the norm.
In the 1970s and early 1980s we had a rapid rise in two-wage earner families; my family included, under something less than perhaps idea conditions, but nonetheless, with two wages my family (and millions of others) were able to take on more debt than we had earlier. This additional debt could be serviced, so it wasn't such a big deal.
About that same time my step dad had me open up a money market account (which I still have today) where he'd match dollar for dollar, so that by the time I got to college it was around $4k, but importantly, was earning somewhere around 8-13%. This was the era of high borrowing costs, too, and since the mid-80s we've seen this steady decline in borrowing costs, allowing families to take on much more debt. This additional debt could be serviced, so it wasn't such a big deal.
Then along came our twin booms of rising stock valuations and rising housal unit valuations where everyone $aw dollar signs and held a belief (a wish, really) that rising asset prices would by themselves contribute to early and comfortable retirements. Cash-out re-fi's and second mortgages and a half dozen $22,000 credit cards -- this allowed families to take on much more debt. This additional debt could be serviced, so it wasn't such a big deal...
That is, until it became clear that four decades of incremental borrowing had left a massive chasm between what was being earned and what was being paid back.
Now the credit boom has gone bust, and it's payback time.
With roughly 40,236,544 Americans currently on SNAP we're masking the true nature of ourrecession depression economy. Easy for me to pay extra for non-pasteurized orange juice, eh, when there are forty million others on food assistance...
With roughly 14,567,821 Americans out of work, with 4,398,556 receiving benefits and another 4,793,227 receiving extended benefits, we're masking the true nature of our economy. Easy for me to pay extra for non-pasteurized juice, eh, while there are over eight million being paid while not working (I don't mean this facetiously).
Then you've got my cousin and a houseful of loafers in a rental in South Sacramento all of whom aren't even counted in all this because they've long since fallen off the turnip truck, never again to be counted as unemployed as they aren't looking or are marginally employed. This masks the true nature of our economy. He's alongside another 8,329,979 part-time workers and 2,565,002 marginally attached workers. Easy for me to pay extra for non-pasteurized juice, eh?
Again with my cousin -- he's got a beat up Honda Civic that he's long since stopped making payments on, while the financial servicing company continues to demand payment yet won't come pick up the car (that's long since stopped running), and I have to wonder about how many hundred thousands of others there are out there who are driving cars they've stopped making payment on, or living in houses that they've long since been foreclosed on but are still continuing to use. This masks the true nature of our economy, when people free from mortgages are living as if they weren't.
Only now, months after the end of our little recession are we seeing teacher and firefighter and police and public servants under the guillotine. Hard to understand why, if we're out of recession.
Only now, months after the end of our little recession are we seeing the worst month over month fall in housal unit sales in our nation's history. Hard to understand why, if we're out of recession.
What this is all gonna do, in my little opinion, is set us up for a better nation once all this works itself through, and the more mired in muck we get into while fording that chasm the better we'll become at the receiving end. Perhaps we'll become a nation of savers. Of non-barcode people. Of non-consumers. Of regional caretakers.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps William & Martha, both working in 2017, will be forced to enter little Billy into the workforce, to become a family of three-wage earners to support even more levels of personal debt.
In the 1970s and early 1980s we had a rapid rise in two-wage earner families; my family included, under something less than perhaps idea conditions, but nonetheless, with two wages my family (and millions of others) were able to take on more debt than we had earlier. This additional debt could be serviced, so it wasn't such a big deal.
About that same time my step dad had me open up a money market account (which I still have today) where he'd match dollar for dollar, so that by the time I got to college it was around $4k, but importantly, was earning somewhere around 8-13%. This was the era of high borrowing costs, too, and since the mid-80s we've seen this steady decline in borrowing costs, allowing families to take on much more debt. This additional debt could be serviced, so it wasn't such a big deal.
Then along came our twin booms of rising stock valuations and rising housal unit valuations where everyone $aw dollar signs and held a belief (a wish, really) that rising asset prices would by themselves contribute to early and comfortable retirements. Cash-out re-fi's and second mortgages and a half dozen $22,000 credit cards -- this allowed families to take on much more debt. This additional debt could be serviced, so it wasn't such a big deal...
That is, until it became clear that four decades of incremental borrowing had left a massive chasm between what was being earned and what was being paid back.
Now the credit boom has gone bust, and it's payback time.
With roughly 40,236,544 Americans currently on SNAP we're masking the true nature of our
With roughly 14,567,821 Americans out of work, with 4,398,556 receiving benefits and another 4,793,227 receiving extended benefits, we're masking the true nature of our economy. Easy for me to pay extra for non-pasteurized juice, eh, while there are over eight million being paid while not working (I don't mean this facetiously).
Then you've got my cousin and a houseful of loafers in a rental in South Sacramento all of whom aren't even counted in all this because they've long since fallen off the turnip truck, never again to be counted as unemployed as they aren't looking or are marginally employed. This masks the true nature of our economy. He's alongside another 8,329,979 part-time workers and 2,565,002 marginally attached workers. Easy for me to pay extra for non-pasteurized juice, eh?
Again with my cousin -- he's got a beat up Honda Civic that he's long since stopped making payments on, while the financial servicing company continues to demand payment yet won't come pick up the car (that's long since stopped running), and I have to wonder about how many hundred thousands of others there are out there who are driving cars they've stopped making payment on, or living in houses that they've long since been foreclosed on but are still continuing to use. This masks the true nature of our economy, when people free from mortgages are living as if they weren't.
Only now, months after the end of our little recession are we seeing teacher and firefighter and police and public servants under the guillotine. Hard to understand why, if we're out of recession.
Only now, months after the end of our little recession are we seeing the worst month over month fall in housal unit sales in our nation's history. Hard to understand why, if we're out of recession.
What this is all gonna do, in my little opinion, is set us up for a better nation once all this works itself through, and the more mired in muck we get into while fording that chasm the better we'll become at the receiving end. Perhaps we'll become a nation of savers. Of non-barcode people. Of non-consumers. Of regional caretakers.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps William & Martha, both working in 2017, will be forced to enter little Billy into the workforce, to become a family of three-wage earners to support even more levels of personal debt.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
A Bad Case Of Fleas
How many hours, do you suppose, it takes Seaworld to process $75,000 in gate receipts? Three? Fifteen?
Seaworld, of course, will shrug off their $75,000 OSHA fine like a bad case of fleas, as it is really just that -- a minor cost of doing business.
I find it somewhat amazing that whale training even falls under the purview of occupational health. I presume employees of Dick's Skydiving do also, along with anyone else who maintains a dangerous recreational job. Fair enough -- no way for me to determine what's recreational/therapeutical/industrial, and no way for me to determine the risks associated with any given job. I only question the relevance of a $75,000 fine. This means nothing to OSHA who prolly spent three times that investigating this incident, means nothing to Seaworld with a few billion in revenues, means nothing to patrons who already enjoy low $79 ticket prices, and means nothing for the family of the trainer killed. OK. Fine 'em, and move on.
Then, rest assured, that any fine, any fine, levied against Mr. Austin DeCoster for this half billion egg recall will be treated in exactly the same way -- a minor cost of doing business. He's been sued a dozen times in as many years by a dozen plaintiffs and there's no reason to think that industrial egg production won't continue the exact same way going forward following any any! OSHA fine...except for possibly eggs costing another (horrors!) twenty cents a dozen.
I've mentioned several times here on my monologues how the independent grocer near where I work stocks Perricone juices, and how I can actually get unpasteurized orange juice in a market. Yes, this is 2010, dear reader -- there still are stores that sell real food. Yes, it's expensive, but I know what hasn't been done to it, and I'm willing to spend money on proper food and simply text message a few fewer times each month. Lately, we're getting reminded of how all this salmonella would have been a non-issue if we had just pasteurized our entire national egg supply.
Why not pre-cook all our fucking beef, too? Huh? Why are we even allowed to possess raw pork chops? Shouldn't that be a crime? And apples, why aren't they all rendered down into soup cans to save us, save us all from e-coli?
This is not going to be the proper solution to industrial food production...although we're going to do it anyway. Along with irradiation we'll throw any number of other technological solutions at this but in the end we'll end up with one thing: dead food. And with that comes a dead citizenry, primed for universal health care servicing. Yep, from an economic/GDP perspective, this makes perfect sense. We're gonna do it anyway...
Do you find it strange that you'll spend a good deal of time choosing a dentist yet you'll totally disregard who processed the eggs your teeth will grind?
Seaworld, of course, will shrug off their $75,000 OSHA fine like a bad case of fleas, as it is really just that -- a minor cost of doing business.
I find it somewhat amazing that whale training even falls under the purview of occupational health. I presume employees of Dick's Skydiving do also, along with anyone else who maintains a dangerous recreational job. Fair enough -- no way for me to determine what's recreational/therapeutical/industrial, and no way for me to determine the risks associated with any given job. I only question the relevance of a $75,000 fine. This means nothing to OSHA who prolly spent three times that investigating this incident, means nothing to Seaworld with a few billion in revenues, means nothing to patrons who already enjoy low $79 ticket prices, and means nothing for the family of the trainer killed. OK. Fine 'em, and move on.
Then, rest assured, that any fine, any fine, levied against Mr. Austin DeCoster for this half billion egg recall will be treated in exactly the same way -- a minor cost of doing business. He's been sued a dozen times in as many years by a dozen plaintiffs and there's no reason to think that industrial egg production won't continue the exact same way going forward following any any! OSHA fine...except for possibly eggs costing another (horrors!) twenty cents a dozen.
I've mentioned several times here on my monologues how the independent grocer near where I work stocks Perricone juices, and how I can actually get unpasteurized orange juice in a market. Yes, this is 2010, dear reader -- there still are stores that sell real food. Yes, it's expensive, but I know what hasn't been done to it, and I'm willing to spend money on proper food and simply text message a few fewer times each month. Lately, we're getting reminded of how all this salmonella would have been a non-issue if we had just pasteurized our entire national egg supply.
Why not pre-cook all our fucking beef, too? Huh? Why are we even allowed to possess raw pork chops? Shouldn't that be a crime? And apples, why aren't they all rendered down into soup cans to save us, save us all from e-coli?
This is not going to be the proper solution to industrial food production...although we're going to do it anyway. Along with irradiation we'll throw any number of other technological solutions at this but in the end we'll end up with one thing: dead food. And with that comes a dead citizenry, primed for universal health care servicing. Yep, from an economic/GDP perspective, this makes perfect sense. We're gonna do it anyway...
Do you find it strange that you'll spend a good deal of time choosing a dentist yet you'll totally disregard who processed the eggs your teeth will grind?
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Party On, Dude!
Man, as I look around my house at all the consumer junk we've bought, there isn't one thing since, say, 1997, built domestically.
We held a birthday party with a number of people over this weekend and there really wasn't one single thing, not one prop, not one gift given, that was made in the USA. My gift was an assembly of component items whose companies are listed in the U.S. but whose products were manufactured in...where else...China.
It seems to me that our nation is solely filled with jobs selling foreign made shit to other people whose jobs are to sell foreign made shit back to them.
Come on. They owner of the party rental store here in Elk Grove. Do you think for one second any of her wares (trinkets, chair and table rentals, little plastic grooms and brides for atop cakes) aren't Chinese? Her job is, exclusively, to sell foreign made shit to other people...people such as me. Her store is loaded with expendable items that are intended to be used once then shit canned.
Shouldn't they be, you ask? Isn't that the function of global trade, to allow the comparative advantage of nations to manufacture all they can of what they produce best/cheapest? And if the rest of the world doesn't mind building stuff cheaper than us, and that we decide to rescind manufacturing and instead turn to the retail selling of said items and then making the really good profit margins by selling insurance on it and financial products to fund it, isn't that better for everyone?
Perhaps it is.
But I'll be here to tell you that there is a differential in the standard of living here vs. the rest of the world that is increasingly narrowing, to which I believe the U.S. standard will fall to meet the rising standard of everyone else -- it won't be that we maintain our current standard and the rest of the world rises to our existing level. It won't be, because our standard has been hallucinated for the past thirty years -- hallucinated property wealth, dot-com wealth, declining wealth in our natural resources in oil, timber, coal, natural gas, uranium, declining wage growth...
This idea that we've lost $7 trillion in property values and six million jobs since 2007 -- it's bullshit because that wealth never existed in the first place, it was all hallucinated. It was borrowed at the expense of today, and today (propped up by trillions in stimulation/bailouts/tax credits/cash-4-clunkers) doesn't look all that good, knowing that today's standard is a function of both our efforts today along with a sizable portion of tomorrow's efforts.
But for yesterday, our party was great. Didn't think about all this stuff for a few hours, and indeed fell right into how the rest of the U.S. goes about their weekends. Didn't care a whit about where those deviled eggs or the soybean oil in the mayonnaise came from, or the salami in the submarine sandwiches, or the little plastic shot glasses, or the HFCS in the margarita mix, or the paper in those Hallmar....
We held a birthday party with a number of people over this weekend and there really wasn't one single thing, not one prop, not one gift given, that was made in the USA. My gift was an assembly of component items whose companies are listed in the U.S. but whose products were manufactured in...where else...China.
It seems to me that our nation is solely filled with jobs selling foreign made shit to other people whose jobs are to sell foreign made shit back to them.
Come on. They owner of the party rental store here in Elk Grove. Do you think for one second any of her wares (trinkets, chair and table rentals, little plastic grooms and brides for atop cakes) aren't Chinese? Her job is, exclusively, to sell foreign made shit to other people...people such as me. Her store is loaded with expendable items that are intended to be used once then shit canned.
Shouldn't they be, you ask? Isn't that the function of global trade, to allow the comparative advantage of nations to manufacture all they can of what they produce best/cheapest? And if the rest of the world doesn't mind building stuff cheaper than us, and that we decide to rescind manufacturing and instead turn to the retail selling of said items and then making the really good profit margins by selling insurance on it and financial products to fund it, isn't that better for everyone?
Perhaps it is.
But I'll be here to tell you that there is a differential in the standard of living here vs. the rest of the world that is increasingly narrowing, to which I believe the U.S. standard will fall to meet the rising standard of everyone else -- it won't be that we maintain our current standard and the rest of the world rises to our existing level. It won't be, because our standard has been hallucinated for the past thirty years -- hallucinated property wealth, dot-com wealth, declining wealth in our natural resources in oil, timber, coal, natural gas, uranium, declining wage growth...
This idea that we've lost $7 trillion in property values and six million jobs since 2007 -- it's bullshit because that wealth never existed in the first place, it was all hallucinated. It was borrowed at the expense of today, and today (propped up by trillions in stimulation/bailouts/tax credits/cash-4-clunkers) doesn't look all that good, knowing that today's standard is a function of both our efforts today along with a sizable portion of tomorrow's efforts.
But for yesterday, our party was great. Didn't think about all this stuff for a few hours, and indeed fell right into how the rest of the U.S. goes about their weekends. Didn't care a whit about where those deviled eggs or the soybean oil in the mayonnaise came from, or the salami in the submarine sandwiches, or the little plastic shot glasses, or the HFCS in the margarita mix, or the paper in those Hallmar....
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Recalled!
Look at the following thirteen brand names for this recent voluntary egg recall:
Albertsons
Lucerne
Mountain Dairy
Ralph's
Boomsma's
Sunshine
Hillandale
Trafficanda
Farm Fresh
Shoreland
Lund
Dutch Farms
Kemps
And then tell me, what do any of these have to do with factory egg farming in Wright County, Iowa?
Albertsons (No stores available for the selected state, Iowa)
Lucerne (Not a single manufacturing plant in Iowa)
Mountain Dairy (Eastern Connecticut only, from Moo to You. not one hint that Iowan eggs are used in any of their products)
Ralph's (Southern California only)
Boomsma's (No clue)
Sunshine (In Iowa! Wa-hey!)
Hillandale (from farm to forklift, the best shell eggs in the U.S.)
Trafficanda (why would an egg ranch in Van Nuys be bothered by eggs from Iowa, huh?)
Farm Fresh (their website says that all their eggs are produced in VA)
Shoreland (good luck finding any info on this outfit)
Lund (hey, they only get their eggs from Woodville, WI...so why would the government be recalling their eggs, huh?)
Dutch Farms (at least they say this was a bullshit recall notice, that some eggs may have been inadvertent packaged by a small distributor in Iowa)
Kemps (you'll easily find more info on Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle eggs than shell eggs...)
Are you at all concerned that humans, when entering these hen houses sniffing around for the source of this salmonella, have to suit up in biohazard gear beforehand? My son and I ate dozens of eggs on the Rock Ridge Ranch last year...I didn't once have to spray him down with 185 degree ammonia before he went in gathering eggs.
Again. You should disregard these recall notices. This is American consumption at its finest, and voluntary recalls only keep it that way. Continue to focus instead on who's in the lead for the NASCAR sprint cup. Casey Mears, yes? Fifty bucks says you know who's in the lead. Fifty more bucks says you have no idea what state (or states) your last egg came from.
Albertsons
Lucerne
Mountain Dairy
Ralph's
Boomsma's
Sunshine
Hillandale
Trafficanda
Farm Fresh
Shoreland
Lund
Dutch Farms
Kemps
And then tell me, what do any of these have to do with factory egg farming in Wright County, Iowa?
Albertsons (No stores available for the selected state, Iowa)
Lucerne (Not a single manufacturing plant in Iowa)
Mountain Dairy (Eastern Connecticut only, from Moo to You. not one hint that Iowan eggs are used in any of their products)
Ralph's (Southern California only)
Boomsma's (No clue)
Sunshine (In Iowa! Wa-hey!)
Hillandale (from farm to forklift, the best shell eggs in the U.S.)
Trafficanda (why would an egg ranch in Van Nuys be bothered by eggs from Iowa, huh?)
Farm Fresh (their website says that all their eggs are produced in VA)
Shoreland (good luck finding any info on this outfit)
Lund (hey, they only get their eggs from Woodville, WI...so why would the government be recalling their eggs, huh?)
Dutch Farms (at least they say this was a bullshit recall notice, that some eggs may have been inadvertent packaged by a small distributor in Iowa)
Kemps (you'll easily find more info on Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle eggs than shell eggs...)
Are you at all concerned that humans, when entering these hen houses sniffing around for the source of this salmonella, have to suit up in biohazard gear beforehand? My son and I ate dozens of eggs on the Rock Ridge Ranch last year...I didn't once have to spray him down with 185 degree ammonia before he went in gathering eggs.
Again. You should disregard these recall notices. This is American consumption at its finest, and voluntary recalls only keep it that way. Continue to focus instead on who's in the lead for the NASCAR sprint cup. Casey Mears, yes? Fifty bucks says you know who's in the lead. Fifty more bucks says you have no idea what state (or states) your last egg came from.
Our Current Threat Level?
Along with our penchant for cheap Chinese manufactured shit, we Americans like our food cheap and shitty too. Just look to today's recall of 380,000,000 eggs, and note that the recall is totally voluntary.
Yep. Voluntary. Go ahead, just voluntarily remove all your P-1026, P-1413, and P-1946 eggs you've already bought, already half-consumed. All three hundred and eighty million of them. If you're typical, you'll ignore this recall. Just ignore it. The odds of you being affected are slim...considering that there are only 9,000 tainted food related deaths per year in this country, your risk is virtually nil. Virtually nil. Your odds of getting killed by an errant 23-year-old driver on her cell-phone is much higher, and much more probable, so please, ignore all this food safety bullshit and continue to consume your 224 eggs per year without regard to where they're sourced.
Especially if the recall is voluntary. Would you voluntarily return your child's fire-proof pajamas just because one in three hundred and eighty million children spontaneously combusted?
No.
Would you voluntarily return your 16 lb, Double Face Brigade Hickory Handle Sledge Hammer because the head might loosen and detach, posing a risk of impact injury to you, the American consumer?
No.
But...you'll feed that kid of yours pop tarts, ho-hos, fruity pebbles, Shasta soda, and totally care less about where all that [notional] food comes from.
You could care less...much like you could care less about what color our national security threat level is. No one knows. Not me. And not you.
It is as pointless to know our DHS threat level as it is salmonella outbreaks in our food supply. They represent minor threats; insignificant threats. You are much better off focusing on Mel Gibson's tirades or Lady Gaga's next wardrobe. Truthfully. I don't mean that in a bad way. You are more American by knowing where Tom proposed to Katie than where the Battle of the Bulge was fought.
I might be suggesting that we ought to focus on different things here in our U.S., but really, I don't ever see it happening. I blog as if. As if we'd actually do anything meaningful in this nation. We won't, and I'm smart enough to understand that, and I could honestly care less if this nation of ours self-destructs, implodes, or becomes the icon of environmental stewardship and sustainable economic sensibility.
I could care less because, in all instances, I intend on thriving. To the extent that I plan correctly for self destruction, I will thrive and if it never happens and we return to 4.5% growth and infinite natural resource extraction, well, I most certainly will continue to thrive.
Yep. Voluntary. Go ahead, just voluntarily remove all your P-1026, P-1413, and P-1946 eggs you've already bought, already half-consumed. All three hundred and eighty million of them. If you're typical, you'll ignore this recall. Just ignore it. The odds of you being affected are slim...considering that there are only 9,000 tainted food related deaths per year in this country, your risk is virtually nil. Virtually nil. Your odds of getting killed by an errant 23-year-old driver on her cell-phone is much higher, and much more probable, so please, ignore all this food safety bullshit and continue to consume your 224 eggs per year without regard to where they're sourced.
Especially if the recall is voluntary. Would you voluntarily return your child's fire-proof pajamas just because one in three hundred and eighty million children spontaneously combusted?
No.
Would you voluntarily return your 16 lb, Double Face Brigade Hickory Handle Sledge Hammer because the head might loosen and detach, posing a risk of impact injury to you, the American consumer?
No.
But...you'll feed that kid of yours pop tarts, ho-hos, fruity pebbles, Shasta soda, and totally care less about where all that [notional] food comes from.
You could care less...much like you could care less about what color our national security threat level is. No one knows. Not me. And not you.
It is as pointless to know our DHS threat level as it is salmonella outbreaks in our food supply. They represent minor threats; insignificant threats. You are much better off focusing on Mel Gibson's tirades or Lady Gaga's next wardrobe. Truthfully. I don't mean that in a bad way. You are more American by knowing where Tom proposed to Katie than where the Battle of the Bulge was fought.
I might be suggesting that we ought to focus on different things here in our U.S., but really, I don't ever see it happening. I blog as if. As if we'd actually do anything meaningful in this nation. We won't, and I'm smart enough to understand that, and I could honestly care less if this nation of ours self-destructs, implodes, or becomes the icon of environmental stewardship and sustainable economic sensibility.
I could care less because, in all instances, I intend on thriving. To the extent that I plan correctly for self destruction, I will thrive and if it never happens and we return to 4.5% growth and infinite natural resource extraction, well, I most certainly will continue to thrive.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Eat Right When Money's Tight
Each morning as I'm riding my bicycle to work through Oak Park ( the most destitute neighborhood I ride through), I pass this billboard:
I cannot resolve my extreme cognitive dissonance regarding this new advertising campaign by the State of California -- one thought is, yes, eating right is a good thing...while all my other thoughts are wondering how this can possibly be held up by the poorest of our citizens when broccoli is $1.79 a pound and a three-pound 2-liter bottle of Pepsi is $0.79?
I didn't realize, not until I searched for the electronic version of this poster, was that it is all sponsored and paid for by SNAP, or our California Dept. of Public Health, as indicated in the smallest possible print at the bottom. The argument apparently being that if you are on SNAP (food stamps elsewhere in the world) -- money must be tight.
Yet I try to follow the money, and while I'm not automatically an anti-corporate, anti-globalist, environmentalist zealot...I do read the weekly newsletter from my CSA. The corn they grew for me last week -- no monies, except my own, subsidized its production, while $56,000,000,000 in tax dollars were spent over the past eleven years to prop-up industrial corn farming. Milled to produce corn starch, then further processed to produce corn syrup, a few billion $0.79 2-liter bottles of Pepsi are created, then advertised less than a half-mile away from this billboard at the Food Source at Broadway & Stockton, and sold to overweight Sacramentans on food stamps providing over 800 calories for next to nothing.
So. I've got federal tax dollars subsidizing industrial corn syrup production while I've got state tax dollars telling me not to eat it...
Tell me, what are the odds, the odds!, that I'd go into that Food Source and find more broccoli than HFCS in the basket of any SNAP recipient? I'd bet my next paycheck that I'd not find one, no matter if rule #6 was plastered on each plastic seat on each shopping cart, plastered on every bus stop bench, plastered across every HDTV and radio advertisement. It can't be done because corn syrup is too fucking cheap, and Americans? Well, all they ever care about, and all they ever will care about is that their products are cheap. We spend less money on food today than during anytime in history. To say that we can't do it, with a cell phone tied around every South Sacramentan ear, would be facetious.
Gotta wonder...what do you suppose rules #1 through #5 are? And think about the slogan if this were 2006, whenhallucinated wealth money wasn't tight: Eat like shit when you're rolling in it?
Not only is obesity explodingdue to HFCS I mean, ahem, due to other lifestyle factors according to the Corn Refiners Association, we've not even begun to see the health care consequences of such fat Americans; we've not even begun to scratch the surface of all the cost increases associated with providing universal health care to each of these fat Americans.
I cannot resolve my extreme cognitive dissonance regarding this new advertising campaign by the State of California -- one thought is, yes, eating right is a good thing...while all my other thoughts are wondering how this can possibly be held up by the poorest of our citizens when broccoli is $1.79 a pound and a three-pound 2-liter bottle of Pepsi is $0.79?
I didn't realize, not until I searched for the electronic version of this poster, was that it is all sponsored and paid for by SNAP, or our California Dept. of Public Health, as indicated in the smallest possible print at the bottom. The argument apparently being that if you are on SNAP (food stamps elsewhere in the world) -- money must be tight.
Yet I try to follow the money, and while I'm not automatically an anti-corporate, anti-globalist, environmentalist zealot...I do read the weekly newsletter from my CSA. The corn they grew for me last week -- no monies, except my own, subsidized its production, while $56,000,000,000 in tax dollars were spent over the past eleven years to prop-up industrial corn farming. Milled to produce corn starch, then further processed to produce corn syrup, a few billion $0.79 2-liter bottles of Pepsi are created, then advertised less than a half-mile away from this billboard at the Food Source at Broadway & Stockton, and sold to overweight Sacramentans on food stamps providing over 800 calories for next to nothing.
So. I've got federal tax dollars subsidizing industrial corn syrup production while I've got state tax dollars telling me not to eat it...
Tell me, what are the odds, the odds!, that I'd go into that Food Source and find more broccoli than HFCS in the basket of any SNAP recipient? I'd bet my next paycheck that I'd not find one, no matter if rule #6 was plastered on each plastic seat on each shopping cart, plastered on every bus stop bench, plastered across every HDTV and radio advertisement. It can't be done because corn syrup is too fucking cheap, and Americans? Well, all they ever care about, and all they ever will care about is that their products are cheap. We spend less money on food today than during anytime in history. To say that we can't do it, with a cell phone tied around every South Sacramentan ear, would be facetious.
Gotta wonder...what do you suppose rules #1 through #5 are? And think about the slogan if this were 2006, when
Not only is obesity exploding
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Boomerang Boys
I find it fortunate that my oldest son landed a railroad job in 2006, just before the economic downturn, while my youngest son is only fourteen and may well be able to join the economy in 2014 with much less comparable difficulty than if he were to try to find a job today.
With sons (and daughters) maturing every month, we need to be creating 100,000 jobs every month just to absorb them, less those exiting the workforce at the old end...let alone trying to re-employ the millions who've lost their jobs. So we created 110,000 jobs last month, which was just enough to keep the total number unemployed still unemployed.
What I'm wondering is if my youngest son will become a boomerang kid, someone between the age of 18-34 still living at home, particularly if the economy continues its piss-poor profile, if it takes a decade or longer to "recover." He's not currently primed for college, so a working existence is calling, but what happens if there simply isn't anything available at eighteen, or if what is available is really mediocre?
And why wouldn't it be mediocre? What sorts of things are occurring today that makes you think tomorrow's economy will be bright and beautiful? What are the odds that the bulk of future jobs more belong in the freelance tranche, considered temporary or contract, rather than be classified permanent? With such a massive labor pool, what are the odds that jobs pay more tomorrow than they do today? With expectations for greater payroll taxes to pay for health-care-for-all and greater taxes period to pay back all this accumulated debt, why would employers employ more?
Will there be this supposed green economy? Wouldn't we first need to re-employ those millions in the existing brown economy (oil, gas, diesel trucking, etc.) before hiring millions more? Will there only be service jobs, seeing how comparative advantages have sent every manufacturing job elsewhere? Will he work in finance, insurance, or real estate? Jobs that don't produce anything? Jobs which we've excelled at creating over the past two decades?
Suppose we are only entering our first years of a protracted economic slowdown...suppose we are just now entering our own lost decade. Isn't this at least plausible? Does your own survival plan at least contemplate a long-term shitty economic environment? Or is your own forecast as rosy as CALPERS, assuming 8% return until the end of time on your housal unit, on your stocks, your CDs, where borrowing costs are in the dirt, where inflation is moderate to non-existent, and where health-care/electricity/higher education/cable television/gasoline/streaming wifi costs rise at only 1.4% per year?
With sons (and daughters) maturing every month, we need to be creating 100,000 jobs every month just to absorb them, less those exiting the workforce at the old end...let alone trying to re-employ the millions who've lost their jobs. So we created 110,000 jobs last month, which was just enough to keep the total number unemployed still unemployed.
What I'm wondering is if my youngest son will become a boomerang kid, someone between the age of 18-34 still living at home, particularly if the economy continues its piss-poor profile, if it takes a decade or longer to "recover." He's not currently primed for college, so a working existence is calling, but what happens if there simply isn't anything available at eighteen, or if what is available is really mediocre?
And why wouldn't it be mediocre? What sorts of things are occurring today that makes you think tomorrow's economy will be bright and beautiful? What are the odds that the bulk of future jobs more belong in the freelance tranche, considered temporary or contract, rather than be classified permanent? With such a massive labor pool, what are the odds that jobs pay more tomorrow than they do today? With expectations for greater payroll taxes to pay for health-care-for-all and greater taxes period to pay back all this accumulated debt, why would employers employ more?
Will there be this supposed green economy? Wouldn't we first need to re-employ those millions in the existing brown economy (oil, gas, diesel trucking, etc.) before hiring millions more? Will there only be service jobs, seeing how comparative advantages have sent every manufacturing job elsewhere? Will he work in finance, insurance, or real estate? Jobs that don't produce anything? Jobs which we've excelled at creating over the past two decades?
Suppose we are only entering our first years of a protracted economic slowdown...suppose we are just now entering our own lost decade. Isn't this at least plausible? Does your own survival plan at least contemplate a long-term shitty economic environment? Or is your own forecast as rosy as CALPERS, assuming 8% return until the end of time on your housal unit, on your stocks, your CDs, where borrowing costs are in the dirt, where inflation is moderate to non-existent, and where health-care/electricity/higher education/cable television/gasoline/streaming wifi costs rise at only 1.4% per year?
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Where's Your Bailout?
If there is one good reason not to be a conservative Republican, it's the advertisements on conservative talk radio: how to recuse yourself of your debts.
"If you owe more than ten thousand dollars in credit card debt, there are government programs that can help. Wall St. received bailouts, and you should, too."
There's a reason these are being advertised on Hannity, Rush, and Sullivan -- conservatives are just as much up to their eyeballs in debt as liberals, and when it comes to government intervention (not to raise taxes but to wipe away debt free and clear,) well, that's an acceptable form of government, yes.
The latest ad all but suggested that if our dear Americans weren't in so much debt that we'd be out of recession already. Wa-hey! What a revelation! And thus, if, somehow, someone could come along and magically remove some of that debt hanging like a millstone around our national economy, we'll, we'd be primed for recovery.
That is -- recovery is nothing more than a continuation of debt-based consumption.
I still relish the chance to listen to conservative talk radio as I so rarely get the opportunity these days, as I don't drive that much and my car radio has died anyway. I don't care much to listen to these advertisements, except that they only further convince me that conservatives are just as likely to fuck over everyone they ever loaned money from as anyone else, so I most certainly won't hold them up as saviors of fiscal responsibility. No, that responsibility is, I believe, conditioned within each of us differently and is independent of our political affiliations. Either you pay back people you owe or you don't.
"If you owe more than ten thousand dollars in credit card debt, there are government programs that can help. Wall St. received bailouts, and you should, too."
There's a reason these are being advertised on Hannity, Rush, and Sullivan -- conservatives are just as much up to their eyeballs in debt as liberals, and when it comes to government intervention (not to raise taxes but to wipe away debt free and clear,) well, that's an acceptable form of government, yes.
The latest ad all but suggested that if our dear Americans weren't in so much debt that we'd be out of recession already. Wa-hey! What a revelation! And thus, if, somehow, someone could come along and magically remove some of that debt hanging like a millstone around our national economy, we'll, we'd be primed for recovery.
That is -- recovery is nothing more than a continuation of debt-based consumption.
I still relish the chance to listen to conservative talk radio as I so rarely get the opportunity these days, as I don't drive that much and my car radio has died anyway. I don't care much to listen to these advertisements, except that they only further convince me that conservatives are just as likely to fuck over everyone they ever loaned money from as anyone else, so I most certainly won't hold them up as saviors of fiscal responsibility. No, that responsibility is, I believe, conditioned within each of us differently and is independent of our political affiliations. Either you pay back people you owe or you don't.
A Real Car
My little Honda Civic is falling apart, yet I hardly ever drive it. The radio stopped working last week, the driver window doesn't "roll up" into the weatherproof liner, the roof paint is badly fading and peeling, the rotors got overheated and are warped, and there's an unmistakable exhaust leak starting. It's only nine years old with sixty thousand miles, forty five of those put on by the previous owner.
This is why bicycling to work is a pointless economic exercise, because not only do I have to fix and maintain the bike I have additional work to do on a car that just sits there most of the time. And while I'm not using it, I'm still insuring it. Man, what a waste.
But because I live squarely in suburbia, right in the middle of one the most car dependent cities on earth, it would be problematic to jettison the car altogether. Because no one else gets around without their cars, public transportation is scarcely viable, and we hardly have gorgeous year-round weather here in Elk Grove. To eliminate a car while living in extreme car dependency would be draconian to say the least, especially when transportation is so heavily subsidized. No, it still makes sense to hold on to the damn thing.
The way around this, of course, is to live in a city where I don't need a fucking car to begin with, where it isn't required for every facet of human existence. Of course, I can't afford to live in such a place -- around here, the few we do have have become the most desirable places to live, places built to human scales, to human speeds, to human endeavors. They also cost twice as much.
Nope, I can't afford a real place to live, at least not yet. In the meantime, because we subsidize road building more than anything else we do, it's cheap to live fifteen miles from everything...cheap to live in Elk Grove. I suppose that living with a cheap broken down car is just something I'll resign to having to live with for as long as I choose to stick it out in this city, unless I decide to join the rest of you and just accept extreme energy dependence and go out and get that new Highlander on credit and stop bitching about all this nonsense of bad urban design, etc. Nope. I can afford a real car to drive, so why don't I?
This is why bicycling to work is a pointless economic exercise, because not only do I have to fix and maintain the bike I have additional work to do on a car that just sits there most of the time. And while I'm not using it, I'm still insuring it. Man, what a waste.
But because I live squarely in suburbia, right in the middle of one the most car dependent cities on earth, it would be problematic to jettison the car altogether. Because no one else gets around without their cars, public transportation is scarcely viable, and we hardly have gorgeous year-round weather here in Elk Grove. To eliminate a car while living in extreme car dependency would be draconian to say the least, especially when transportation is so heavily subsidized. No, it still makes sense to hold on to the damn thing.
The way around this, of course, is to live in a city where I don't need a fucking car to begin with, where it isn't required for every facet of human existence. Of course, I can't afford to live in such a place -- around here, the few we do have have become the most desirable places to live, places built to human scales, to human speeds, to human endeavors. They also cost twice as much.
Nope, I can't afford a real place to live, at least not yet. In the meantime, because we subsidize road building more than anything else we do, it's cheap to live fifteen miles from everything...cheap to live in Elk Grove. I suppose that living with a cheap broken down car is just something I'll resign to having to live with for as long as I choose to stick it out in this city, unless I decide to join the rest of you and just accept extreme energy dependence and go out and get that new Highlander on credit and stop bitching about all this nonsense of bad urban design, etc. Nope. I can afford a real car to drive, so why don't I?
Energy Independent Yet Car Dependent
I drove to work today solo, as I missed the last bus this morning having overslept and I was in no mood to ride the bicycle again. Furthermore, I drove myself and a friend to a restaurant for lunch, where we overheard a woman at the next table tell her friends how she had to get that new Highlander in the parking lot after having her first baby. As we exited the restaurant and admired her beautiful new rig, we wondered why, now that her family was one unit larger, her family needed seven new seats.
I really don't know how this nation is going to become energy independent while remaining so car dependent. I don't think these two can be, or more precisely ought to be, reconciled. I drove the car today because I slept too long. She drove a bigger car today because she needed more space for her 18-month-old. These are discretionary actions carried out by people with discretionary incomes and are being woven further into the collective fabric of American life. That is, this lady will only require more per-unit energy to move around in the future as her Highlander becomes used, at which point she'll be out buying the next new rig to shuttle her and her child around Sacramento.
This evening I again watched another commercial on TV touting the "greenness" of a particular model of car...how you would "save the environment" if you only bought one of them.
The myth of energy independence and car dependent. I don't see it happening.
I really don't know how this nation is going to become energy independent while remaining so car dependent. I don't think these two can be, or more precisely ought to be, reconciled. I drove the car today because I slept too long. She drove a bigger car today because she needed more space for her 18-month-old. These are discretionary actions carried out by people with discretionary incomes and are being woven further into the collective fabric of American life. That is, this lady will only require more per-unit energy to move around in the future as her Highlander becomes used, at which point she'll be out buying the next new rig to shuttle her and her child around Sacramento.
This evening I again watched another commercial on TV touting the "greenness" of a particular model of car...how you would "save the environment" if you only bought one of them.
The myth of energy independence and car dependent. I don't see it happening.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Bathtub Full Of Ice
I shudder to think of my kidneys failing from complications from my type I diabetes in the future. I try to limit alcohol, I am eating right, but they still might fail regardless, a common problem with people who have the diabetes.
I should hope that in the future I might be able to contract directly with someone willing to sell a kidney. I might want a kidney more than I want my money, and a donor wants money more than he wants his kidney. Seems like a good exchange, eh?
I love these moral arguments because I am rarely on the side society chooses. In my world, I'd legalize the selling of organs -- supply would eventually reach or exceed demand, the price would drop, the price would normalize, 15,000 fewer people would die each year and 15,000 other people would have money to go blow at the casino. These arguments that the poor would be put at surgical risk, the assumption being that they would be the first to donate: I don't buy this argument because no one is forced to donate. If they weight the costs and risks associated with donating a kidney (a legal option for anyone today), why should anyone else care? Everyone would have to assume their own risks if they did. Is it the government's place to limit a poor man's risk? Suppose he also likes to skydive...you know, in between stints at the homeless shelter. Should we be limiting that, too?
I also don't buy the argument that it would create a black market for organs, that people might wake up some evening in bathtubs full of ice.
Black markets exist for products and services not freely available, such as for vicodin, sex, lungs, caviar, snuff films, knives, cigarettes, pirated videos, roll-your-own tobacco, firearms, fuel, currency, and in times of war, rubber, coffee, metal, beans and butter. If it were legalized, I'd expect the supply of organs to dramatically increase, to the point that a black market wouldn't be a viable business proposition.
I mention all this, because in my dreams I dream of a modern day depression where black markets would dominate, and I wonder how I'd personally manage through one. It makes sense to engage this though experiment because a depression isn't outside the realm of possibility, not with a government spending one point three million million more each year than it takes in, with a constituency that's conditioned to consume five times the resources per capita of every other nation. It is possible. And I wonder -- what would I be able to offer on a localized black market for the things I want?
A kidney?
I should hope that in the future I might be able to contract directly with someone willing to sell a kidney. I might want a kidney more than I want my money, and a donor wants money more than he wants his kidney. Seems like a good exchange, eh?
I love these moral arguments because I am rarely on the side society chooses. In my world, I'd legalize the selling of organs -- supply would eventually reach or exceed demand, the price would drop, the price would normalize, 15,000 fewer people would die each year and 15,000 other people would have money to go blow at the casino. These arguments that the poor would be put at surgical risk, the assumption being that they would be the first to donate: I don't buy this argument because no one is forced to donate. If they weight the costs and risks associated with donating a kidney (a legal option for anyone today), why should anyone else care? Everyone would have to assume their own risks if they did. Is it the government's place to limit a poor man's risk? Suppose he also likes to skydive...you know, in between stints at the homeless shelter. Should we be limiting that, too?
I also don't buy the argument that it would create a black market for organs, that people might wake up some evening in bathtubs full of ice.Black markets exist for products and services not freely available, such as for vicodin, sex, lungs, caviar, snuff films, knives, cigarettes, pirated videos, roll-your-own tobacco, firearms, fuel, currency, and in times of war, rubber, coffee, metal, beans and butter. If it were legalized, I'd expect the supply of organs to dramatically increase, to the point that a black market wouldn't be a viable business proposition.
I mention all this, because in my dreams I dream of a modern day depression where black markets would dominate, and I wonder how I'd personally manage through one. It makes sense to engage this though experiment because a depression isn't outside the realm of possibility, not with a government spending one point three million million more each year than it takes in, with a constituency that's conditioned to consume five times the resources per capita of every other nation. It is possible. And I wonder -- what would I be able to offer on a localized black market for the things I want?
A kidney?
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Whose Responsibility?
Every day I ride my bicycle past this "development" on Franklin Blvd., each of the housal units within are probably worth $231 less than the day before:
Only now we also get a nice pile of brush at the end of the walkway -- and why not, this is an empty field alongside a collector road at the end of a county-code mandated sidewalk that no one has or will ever walk on...so pile it on. This "public realm" means nothing if the public ain't using it.
Who, exactly, would be responsible for this pile of brush? Who would I call to have this taken care of?
The developer?
No way. His/her responsibility ended at the beautiful capped end-post.
Street maintenance division?
No way. Their responsibility ended at the curb cut.
The county?
No way. Their responsibility would have included the sidewalks, but because there ain't no sidewalk here, they have no jurisdiction. They couldn't even step foot on the dirt.
Public works?
Again, where's the public? Where are the works? Because there aren't any of either, they most certainly have no jurisdiction. No way.
Economic development?
Hardly. It's a major stretch to be calling the development development, let alone a brownfield across from vacant strip retail. Not a whole lot of an economy going on, either. So, no way.
Traffic Bureau?
The brush is not a menace, either now or anticipated to be, to vehicular traffic on Franklin Blvd., so, no way. While it could be argued that it is a menace to pedestrians, the traffic bureau, via carefully crafted language in their code, has deemed pedestrians "obstacles to traffic ...not traffic per se."
Street Sweeping?
No way. It's not on the street, remember?
Garbage & Recycling?
No way. There's no billable address here, and besides, the brush isn't contained inside an approved green-waste container, so the truck has no way of loading it in without...sigh...human labor beforehand...and it's not their job to be loading brush into containers. Understandably so.
So, the brush, tumbleweeds, Jack In The Box hamburger wrappers, go-gurt tubes, Sunny-D plastic bottles, and the dilapidated chain link fence will sit, underneath a beautiful new banner every six months proclaiming how the housal units within are only becoming cheaper by the day. You might wonder who would buy one of these units today. I don't wonder. They are people who have never seen this progression of banners from $300,000, to under $200,000, to $149,000, and who probably assume some sort of guaranteedtaxpayer government intervention if horrors! housal prices fall even further so they won't be on the hook for an underwater investment. Freddie or Fannie will take over the mortgage if, in another six months, a new $119,000 banner is hoisted.
In every detail, from the governmentguaranteed backed loans to the pile of debris to the lack of integrated community development-- no one is responsible.
Only now we also get a nice pile of brush at the end of the walkway -- and why not, this is an empty field alongside a collector road at the end of a county-code mandated sidewalk that no one has or will ever walk on...so pile it on. This "public realm" means nothing if the public ain't using it.
Who, exactly, would be responsible for this pile of brush? Who would I call to have this taken care of?
The developer?
No way. His/her responsibility ended at the beautiful capped end-post.
Street maintenance division?
No way. Their responsibility ended at the curb cut.
The county?
No way. Their responsibility would have included the sidewalks, but because there ain't no sidewalk here, they have no jurisdiction. They couldn't even step foot on the dirt.
Public works?
Again, where's the public? Where are the works? Because there aren't any of either, they most certainly have no jurisdiction. No way.
Economic development?
Hardly. It's a major stretch to be calling the development development, let alone a brownfield across from vacant strip retail. Not a whole lot of an economy going on, either. So, no way.
Traffic Bureau?
The brush is not a menace, either now or anticipated to be, to vehicular traffic on Franklin Blvd., so, no way. While it could be argued that it is a menace to pedestrians, the traffic bureau, via carefully crafted language in their code, has deemed pedestrians "obstacles to traffic ...not traffic per se."
Street Sweeping?
No way. It's not on the street, remember?
Garbage & Recycling?
No way. There's no billable address here, and besides, the brush isn't contained inside an approved green-waste container, so the truck has no way of loading it in without...sigh...human labor beforehand...and it's not their job to be loading brush into containers. Understandably so.
So, the brush, tumbleweeds, Jack In The Box hamburger wrappers, go-gurt tubes, Sunny-D plastic bottles, and the dilapidated chain link fence will sit, underneath a beautiful new banner every six months proclaiming how the housal units within are only becoming cheaper by the day. You might wonder who would buy one of these units today. I don't wonder. They are people who have never seen this progression of banners from $300,000, to under $200,000, to $149,000, and who probably assume some sort of guaranteed
In every detail, from the government
Monday, August 2, 2010
Praise The Lord And Pass The Ammunition!
Imagine the unemployment that might have been, if not for our dual wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Five hundred and fifty servicemen and contractors, supporting perhaps a thousand more family members, are located just fifty one miles north of my Elk Grove at Beale AFB, the new home of the MC-12W surveillance airplane...the Liberty:
Thank God for war, eh? What a boost to our regional economy! These airmen and airwomen will soon be blowing their incomes on popcorn and movie tickets at regional theaters, $1.50 hot dogs at the local Costco, and because housing on the base east of Marysville is in short supply, they will blow a fair percentage of their incomes on private automobiling to shuttle themselves to and from Placer and Sacramento counties. Detroit and BP must certainly be fond of war, too. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!
I garnered this information from a recent Sacramento Bee article, an article written by a Dale Kasler who, frankly, doesn't give a flying fuck (pardon the pun) about the need, the purpose, or a description of the use of this aircraft -- no, the article only describes what sorts of economic benefits the servicing of said aircraft provides for a Northern California community. If these things just sit in a Bagram hanger for the next two decades, or if they assist in the killing of a few thousand pajama-clad Mujahideen, hey, either way, at least those Marysville Dress-4-Less stores will benefit.
Hey, if these aircrafthelp us kill more Afghani infidels help our local economies, well, we shouldn't question their purpose, now should we, and we should all just stand behind the men and women working to keep this equipment operational. Do you think the Air Force would need these planes if we weren't actively at war? Would we really need 37 of these Beech 1900Ds-on-steroids at a cost of $17,000,000 a piece, plus whatever the ongoing maintenance costs are (to include these five hundred and fifty maintenance personnel)?
Doubtful.
Again, I give thanks to our Christian God above that he gave us Muslim extremists, so that our economy doesn't feel quite so bad. Praise the Lord, and pass the spanner wrenches.
Five hundred and fifty servicemen and contractors, supporting perhaps a thousand more family members, are located just fifty one miles north of my Elk Grove at Beale AFB, the new home of the MC-12W surveillance airplane...the Liberty:
Thank God for war, eh? What a boost to our regional economy! These airmen and airwomen will soon be blowing their incomes on popcorn and movie tickets at regional theaters, $1.50 hot dogs at the local Costco, and because housing on the base east of Marysville is in short supply, they will blow a fair percentage of their incomes on private automobiling to shuttle themselves to and from Placer and Sacramento counties. Detroit and BP must certainly be fond of war, too. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!
I garnered this information from a recent Sacramento Bee article, an article written by a Dale Kasler who, frankly, doesn't give a flying fuck (pardon the pun) about the need, the purpose, or a description of the use of this aircraft -- no, the article only describes what sorts of economic benefits the servicing of said aircraft provides for a Northern California community. If these things just sit in a Bagram hanger for the next two decades, or if they assist in the killing of a few thousand pajama-clad Mujahideen, hey, either way, at least those Marysville Dress-4-Less stores will benefit.
Hey, if these aircraft
Doubtful.
Again, I give thanks to our Christian God above that he gave us Muslim extremists, so that our economy doesn't feel quite so bad. Praise the Lord, and pass the spanner wrenches.
Twenty Grams
There is no need to wonder why medical insurance rates are rising at an annual double digit clip. Today I just cost my insurance company somewhere around a thousand bucks, all on account of the mis-allocation of twenty grams of corn.
Knowing I needed something other than the fructose in my morning cherries and bananas prior to yoga, I grabbed a cup of Tuerca De Maiz and took insulin for 48 grams of carbohydrate...when indeed my serving only had 28.
This extra 20 grams, or more precisely, the extra insulin for these 20 grams caused my sugar to crash at the end of my yoga class, I wandered around the SMUD parking lot for an hour until someone responded, at which point the paramedics were called, and a thousand bucks were pissed away, all for half a dozen firemen to deliver me fifty grams of sugar (Gatorade!), among the cheapest foodstuffs known to man.
Knowing that diabetes is one of dozens of American diseases directly related to our ever increasing diets of processed corn syrup and soybean oil (because, hey, we want our food cheap above all else), this nation is primed for another sixty five million type II diabetics come 2050...and many of these will suffer hypoglycemic events that people around them won't know how to handle and for but several pounds of sugar, several billion will be spent rescuing them.
Twenty grams...
Knowing I needed something other than the fructose in my morning cherries and bananas prior to yoga, I grabbed a cup of Tuerca De Maiz and took insulin for 48 grams of carbohydrate...when indeed my serving only had 28.
This extra 20 grams, or more precisely, the extra insulin for these 20 grams caused my sugar to crash at the end of my yoga class, I wandered around the SMUD parking lot for an hour until someone responded, at which point the paramedics were called, and a thousand bucks were pissed away, all for half a dozen firemen to deliver me fifty grams of sugar (Gatorade!), among the cheapest foodstuffs known to man.
Knowing that diabetes is one of dozens of American diseases directly related to our ever increasing diets of processed corn syrup and soybean oil (because, hey, we want our food cheap above all else), this nation is primed for another sixty five million type II diabetics come 2050...and many of these will suffer hypoglycemic events that people around them won't know how to handle and for but several pounds of sugar, several billion will be spent rescuing them.
Twenty grams...
Sunday, August 1, 2010
The Un-Entitled
Wa-hey! Our economy just continues to grow and grow, doesn't it? 2.4% for the last quarter, a raging furnace of productive activity from our workforce.
And hey. And hey. This last quarter marks four straight quarters of growth, so our little recession has now been over for a full year. But somehow, 2.4% ain't good enough. Why would that be? Last time I checked, the interest rate on my Wells Fargo savings account was 0.6%. The GDP growth rate is four times greater than the interest on savings, and that it grows under all this deflationary credit destruction, well, seems like it should be good enough.
Although it seems remote, my hopes for acontinued another recession and depression still exist. I hope for these to mold a better nation on the back end, to build a nation of the un-entitled, to build a nation full of people willing to work with their neighbors to achieve a greater sense of resiliency and security (rather than a nation waiting around for unemployment check number 156 to be direct deposited).
Today we don't count on anyone else because the way we've laid out things we don't have to. Here in suburban Elk Grove I have no need for my neighbors; indeed, they only hinder my own access to things. When I go to work via my own private vehicle, all my damn neighbors are hogging up the freeways. When I go to the store, all my damn neighbors are in line in front of me. No, I don't count on them -- I only count on cheap, plentiful gasoline convienently and strategically positioned at fill stations near my freeway entrances, feedlot beef in nice little packages at the grocery, cheap Chinese shit at the WalMart and well maintained asphalt road surfaces.
If I'm thrown out of work, I still don't need my damn neighbors. Indeed, I'd be competing with them for a slice of that barrage of borrowed unemployment compensation, borrowed from the next generation of workers.
Of course, it is our neighbors who are paving and engineering the roads, keeping us overweight with corn and soybean derived processed foods, packaging in plasticwrap all that pork shoulder, and stocking the shelves at WalMart with cheaply manufactured imported Asian merchandise. We don't need our neighbors in a direct sense, only indirectly...and truthfully, this whole affair could just as easily be outsourced in the future. Perhaps prefab road beds that snap together will someday be manufactured in Laos. Perhaps the concept of a big box store is only the first step -- perhaps future shipping containers will simply be expanded apart at the touch of a button with finished goods lining the insides. This way, finished cuts of Chinese grain-fed pork can be displayed in a consumption depot alongside ninety thousand other containers, where the consumables are sold to American consumers without having to pay American wages to re-package all these imported consumables, where the containers can then be flattened out for their return trip to Asia. This way, cheap Asian labor can barcode the merchandise, cheap Asian labor can display it, package it, and advertise it. All the American has to do is push a fucking button, which is all the work he'll become accustomed to doing in the near future. And when legal Chinese immigrants are hired to come over and push buttons for a fifth of what the American says he needs, well, it'll only get cheaper for everyone.
The building of this new America, with its consumption depots and snap-lok roads, will all come with growth. Growth! Granted, this growth will occur outside the U.S., but hey, that's been happening for the past twenty years as it is.
And guess what...you'll have even less need for your button-pushing neighbor...
And hey. And hey. This last quarter marks four straight quarters of growth, so our little recession has now been over for a full year. But somehow, 2.4% ain't good enough. Why would that be? Last time I checked, the interest rate on my Wells Fargo savings account was 0.6%. The GDP growth rate is four times greater than the interest on savings, and that it grows under all this deflationary credit destruction, well, seems like it should be good enough.
Although it seems remote, my hopes for a
Today we don't count on anyone else because the way we've laid out things we don't have to. Here in suburban Elk Grove I have no need for my neighbors; indeed, they only hinder my own access to things. When I go to work via my own private vehicle, all my damn neighbors are hogging up the freeways. When I go to the store, all my damn neighbors are in line in front of me. No, I don't count on them -- I only count on cheap, plentiful gasoline convienently and strategically positioned at fill stations near my freeway entrances, feedlot beef in nice little packages at the grocery, cheap Chinese shit at the WalMart and well maintained asphalt road surfaces.
If I'm thrown out of work, I still don't need my damn neighbors. Indeed, I'd be competing with them for a slice of that barrage of borrowed unemployment compensation, borrowed from the next generation of workers.
Of course, it is our neighbors who are paving and engineering the roads, keeping us overweight with corn and soybean derived processed foods, packaging in plasticwrap all that pork shoulder, and stocking the shelves at WalMart with cheaply manufactured imported Asian merchandise. We don't need our neighbors in a direct sense, only indirectly...and truthfully, this whole affair could just as easily be outsourced in the future. Perhaps prefab road beds that snap together will someday be manufactured in Laos. Perhaps the concept of a big box store is only the first step -- perhaps future shipping containers will simply be expanded apart at the touch of a button with finished goods lining the insides. This way, finished cuts of Chinese grain-fed pork can be displayed in a consumption depot alongside ninety thousand other containers, where the consumables are sold to American consumers without having to pay American wages to re-package all these imported consumables, where the containers can then be flattened out for their return trip to Asia. This way, cheap Asian labor can barcode the merchandise, cheap Asian labor can display it, package it, and advertise it. All the American has to do is push a fucking button, which is all the work he'll become accustomed to doing in the near future. And when legal Chinese immigrants are hired to come over and push buttons for a fifth of what the American says he needs, well, it'll only get cheaper for everyone.
The building of this new America, with its consumption depots and snap-lok roads, will all come with growth. Growth! Granted, this growth will occur outside the U.S., but hey, that's been happening for the past twenty years as it is.
And guess what...you'll have even less need for your button-pushing neighbor...
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